Using Blu-ray M-Disk as Backup of Last Resort

I am also considering an LTO solution of some kind, but I also found out that LTO drives seemingly need some TLC and maintenance if you don’t want your tapes to jam up. I feel like at least with optical media, it’s nearly impossible to screw it up.

I really wish a multi-terabyte optical media solution took off, because that would be the path I’d ultimately take, instead of going with expensive LTO devices and media.

I've been thinking about different techniques for making my NAS backup-able to cold storage and... the thing that has given me pause with tape is how closed-down the ecosystem for the LTO drives themselves seems to be. What's your strategy for knowing you'll be able to access your tapes to transfer them forward to the next generation in 10-15 years when the tapes start reaching the end of their dependable life?

There's very few companies now making new Blu-Ray drives too. Pioneer has supposedly stopped producing them, and the ASUS drive I bought earlier this year was one of the only SKUs on the market. Sony stopped producing high-capacity recordable BDXL discs too which means they aren't much of an option now for large backups.

If by "really M-Disc" you mean "substantially different from standard HTL BD-Rs", this has never been the case. See this review from when they first came out in 2015: https://goughlui.com/2015/10/16/review-tested-verbatim-lifet...

> While the immediate burn quality seems relatively satisfactory, I was still not satisfied as to whether these discs were truly worth their premium over commodity blank media. Looking at the discs, it seemed that the recording layers were likely made of similar materials based on the visual aspect, unlike the obvious difference with DVDs. Also, it seemed that regular recorders were intended to be able to record to the BD-R’s (according to the Verbatim text).

...

> Digging further around the M-disc site, it is noted that their section on longevity testing actually features no data about the BD-R discs at all. Indeed, if there were tests, the reports were not actually featured on the site at all. Further poking around in M-Disc Technology pages shows only references to their DVD products. In fact, it seems their patented “etched in stone” material may only apply to their DVD products.

...

> From my research into the data, it seems likely that the M-Disc BD-R is not substantially different from other quality BD-R discs on the market as they all use inorganic recording compounds (with the exception of BD-R LTH of course). From a visual inspection, the disc appears the same bright chocolate-brown, unlike the obvious distinction with regular dye based DVDs and the M-Disc DVD which was a silver-grey. But my main concern lies in the demonstrated lifetimes of quality BD-Rs which are similar to the M-Disc DVD (to which the M-Disc BD-R is claimed to have also achieved). In essence, it appears that the MKM/Verbatim BD-R DL has already reached the same level of endurance as the M-Disc DVD had claimed without being “special” at all. It is thus, hard to justify paying more for an M-Disc BD-R, and I cannot really recommend it.

The "not really M-Disc" stuff comes from a post somebody made on the "Data Hoarder" Reddit board a few years ago. The discs were changed to enable higher burning speeds which resulted in a slight difference in appearance, but he/she didn't seem to have realized that Blu-Ray M-Discs were never substantially different from BD-Rs and instead assumed that the tweaked discs were more of a scam than the originals.

I do this, alongside other methods.

The problem with archiving data is you always need to be prepared to use the "next big thing" once your preferred method becomes unobtainable.

I currently have :

- Photos in iCloud (Live working copy)

- Backup at home on NAS (updated nightly, snapshots)

- Backup in pCloud (lifetime, mine or theirs, no illusions, hopefully lasts a couple of months if I die unexpectedly)

- Yearly archive on external HDDs, identical copies stored in separate locations, clearly labeled "Photo backup". No encryption, no archiving, just plain APFS formatted drives that can be plugged into a computer and read.

- Yearly archive M-disc blu-ray discs, again, identical copies, stored in separate locations. One disc per year labeled as such, ie. "Photo Backup 2020". The idea being you restore them in chronological order and have a complete set.

Blu-ray drives are becoming increasingly rare sadly, so it's not great to hand over to others in the years ahead. An external hard disk drive kept safe and secure might be your only option. I had the same issue 6 years ago winding down my company and archiving data. Only sensible options were M-DISC and external hard disks.

Buy a new hard drive every year, make it your primary drive. The previous one becomes your backup.

Or just keep it attached to your system, so spyware, adware, and the NSA will make free backups for you!

get some used LTO-5 / LTO-6 drive if you have some desktop/server to plug it in

Do you periodically re-read the old discs to check them? I burn a par2 recovery set (around 10 percent) onto each disc alongside the data, and once a year run a full verify with dvdisaster or just par2 verify. A disc that starts throwing correctable errors gets re-burned while it can still be read cleanly, which matters more to me than the rated lifetime of any single disc.

Do they have LTO tapes on a shelf?

Most enterprise gigs I've worked sent them to Iron Mountain or equivalent.

> Just use a magnetic hard disk and your data will be fine for many decades if not centuries.

A few months ago I needed to pull from an offline backup. The disk, which used CMR and was purchased new from an actual computer supply company (i.e. not Amazon), was burnt in for about 72 hours before it was loaded up with data and shoved in a padded box. Ten years later, the drive was pulled, and there were so many media surface errors that most of the data was unrecoverable. (I haven’t bothered opening the drive to see if there is some obvious sign of what exactly failed.)

In my case the backups were created in multiples using two different brands for exactly this reason, and the second copy was fine. But I wouldn’t say it’s the case a single magnetic disk can take the place of BD.

Mechanical disks are also getting expensive. The disk purchased to replace the failed backup was being sold at three times its original release MSRP. Some of this is due to the AI hysteria but some of it is also that the market is shrinking and becoming K-shaped.

Just use a magnetic hard disk and your data will be fine for many decades if not centuries.

Comically untrue, and trivial to verify that it is.

You obviously need to store the data in a physically remote place like your shed, car

Let's make it worse by keeping them someplace with terrible environmentals.

If you're gonna be wrong, don't be just a little wrong...

Tell that to my circa-2000s WD MyBook that clicks and fails to initialize after ~17 years in climate-controlled storage in its original packaging. I'm about to attempt surgery on the heads to see if I can get it going again.

I also have a binder full of DVD-Rs, of about the same age and containing mostly the same data, that all read perfectly with no issues.

You're asking for trouble if you count on just one backup solution to keep your data safe.

> Just use a magnetic hard disk and your data will be fine for many decades if not centuries

It is absolutely not safe for many decades. If you haven't encountered any drive failures yet — you're lucky.

> A hard disk is cheap and stores several Terabytes

You should check prices again, I wouldn't say cheap considering price bump during the last year (or around so). M-Disks are way less convenient, but pretty reasonable for their cost.

Offline HDDs are not a reliable long term data storage. Not even for a few years.

Hard drives are a safe option if you keep them redundant, online, and scrub them regularly. They are not a good long-term offline archive format.

Hard drives are way bigger, but M-Disk is more reliable for very long term storage.

Hard disks aren't even rated for one decade.

With the decline in quality I am no longer confident my HDDs are actually a save backup strategy.

I have so many photos of vacations and people who I've buried over the years, that I don't want to lose.

So I was thinking about using Blu-ray M-Disks as well, these last couple of months.